Echo Skill and Time Skip part 2

(Brian's P.O.V)

"Master, I'd like to put forth a request."

I bowed respectfully after the master had once again paired Lee to spar with one of the older students. 

Talk sprung out from the others. We were a very small group so anything interesting that happened was the talk of the town amongst us. They knew what I was going to ask and sure enough...

"It's been 1 year since you last challenged me Parker. 1 year since I beat you to the ground. Are you sure you want a repeat of that?"

Lee's snide voice flowed out. Time had done wonders for his body physique. Possessing both asian and Caucasian features, Lee was growing up into a man most women would kill for (no homo). Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for his personality. 

He'd grown arrogant, overconfident and terrible under the praises from our peers and grown-ups as well. Everyone added to the stroke of his growing ego, all except for the Master and Lee's aunt, Miu. The master was proud of his grand son but he never showed any favoritism. He was hard on him like he was on the rest of us and that made me happy. I was already in the bad graces of most of the kids and some of the teachers here, I didn't know how I could have navigated having the master dislike me as well.

"Silence."

The master's order was enough to make everyone quiet down.

"Step forward. Both of you."

I breathed in to center myself and stood up. Lee was already on the rolling mat.

"Well, get up. I haven't got all day."

I didn't respond but instead settled into a lose stance of 'Goken.'  It wasnt as strong as Might Guy's martial arts but it had taken a lot of inspiration from it. 

Wing Chun had failed in countering Lee's special Tai chi, so over the course of all our spars I had had to develop a personalized martial art style to keep up with him. It had been slow going and painful. The only thing saving me from my family pulling me out of the dojo being my cultivator's fast healing.

Just as Tai chi was effective on styles with overbearing attacks, strong fist was also effective on the essence of avoidance, deflection and misdirection that his modified Tai Chi possessed. It relied on chaining attacks and charging forward despite the dodges and deflection used against it. It also allowed me to step into the same level of strength he was. 

I stared into the eyes of my opponent and saw nothing of the caution that had been there 3 years before. All there was now was a cocky-ness, that made me mistake Lee for an arrogant young master from your usual cultivation world. And you know what happens to arrogant young masters, right?

"Begin."

I immediately ran forward, hands facing backwards like a Shinobi from Naruto. 

"Why's he running like that?"

"I don't know but Lee is gonna beat him like always."

I used the momentum from my run to jump above Lee's kick, and sent an axe-kick to the top of his head. He crossed his fore-arms and blocked the blow. 

"Echo."

I whispered under my breath. Lee's eyes widened and his body buckled as he took a knee. 

A small blast of wind blew out from our position and I felt more than saw everyone's shock. Lee's hand enclosed my leg and pulled, putting me into a split, before throwing a knee ending straight for my face. I rolled away to the side but he adjusted his blow into a side-kick that I managed to block with my left fore-arm. I winced and jumped away.

"Come on!"

He shouted while running straight for me. A palm strike that I met with a fist, sent both of us back.  For the next few seconds, a barrage of strikes that most of the other kids couldn't keep up with exploded from the both of us. I felt like laughing in glee as I wasn't falling behind like a year ago. My training was beginning to show results and nothing quite made me as happy.

I threw a kick that he blocked with a knee while bringing up his other leg to connect with my chest. A blow that would have definitely been enough to make me lose my breath and take me out of the fight. 

I received the foot with my hands.

"Echo:Reverse."

The force acting on my hands was half nullified and half sent back to him, his eyes widened again but it was enough to let me sweep his other leg off the floor. He went with it and whirled around in the air trying to transition into a flip. 

"Double echo."

My fist connected with his chest and threw him away.

He hit the ground and rolled out of the rolling mat while groaning.

"Winner, Parker."

The master's voice was delayed for a bit as everyone was shocked by the outcome. 

"No. I demand a rematch!"

Lee snarled indignantly.

My hand stung with pain as I tried to shake it off. I still couldn't use 'double echo' without it hurting. 

I knew he couldn't believe it. Couldn't accept that he was now back to second position. 

He could have been a rival but unfortunately for him, I wasn't into that melodrama. Once I learned all I could from the dojo, we would probably never see each other again. I had dreams way bigger than what he could fathom and permit me a little arrogance, he wasn't good enough to be my eternal rival. Shit, now I'm the one sounding like a shonen anime character. 

I bowed to the master and stepped away. He had a complicated look on his face that I didn't bother to think about as I went to sit at my usual place. It had been 5 years since I'd first seen the formation, 3 years since I'd started trying to decipher it, 2 years since I'd glimpsed into a little of it's inner mechanism and learned calligraphy from Lee's aunt Miu, the receptionist at the front desk and 1 year since I'd finally made my first seal. A seal that had helped me keep up with a kid entering his growth spurt while being 2 years younger. 

But I was stuck. I couldn't make sense of the rest of the formation. Just the stabilizing core characters had been enough to help me construct a resistance seal that applied only 10% of my body's weight on me. It wasn't that effective and I couldn't stack the resistance seals upon each other but my body seemed eager for any progress even if it was just a little. So I'd kept up with my normal exercise. Push-ups, swimming, running and the rest all while under the seal.

I was lean at 10 years old but possessed cut muscles that would have shocked people if they ever saw me shirtless. I mentally brought up my status, as I'd started to call it.

[Name: Brian Parker]

Cultivation level: N/A (78% to ???)

Body strength: average human teen

Soul strength: N/A

Mental strength: Low Psion

Special skills: Echo

I reviewed my progress and the usual dissatisfaction rose up again. My growth was so slow. If only I'd been in a world where the energy in the air was potent enough! I mentally sighed. It wasn't all for nothing though. I mean although my cultivation was still N/A. The progress to the next level had shot up from 0.6% to 78%. I was really looking forward for it to reach 100%. Which was probably when I would officially step into the body refining stage.

My body strength was that of an average human teen. This was mostly because of the resistance seal. 10 % and I already had the strength of a teenager while I was just a kid. I wonder what would happen if I managed to create a seal that applied 2 times my weight to my body.  

My soul strength was still N/A so no progress there but surprisingly, my mental strength was still at Low Psion. I had tried every psychic ability I knew of but nothing. No telekinesis, psychometry, telepathy or even emphathy. Nothing had worked. Except for creating echo but that...that was different.

The echo skill was my greatest creation till now. That and trying to develop my own martial art skill of course. The essence of echo was pretty much straight forward. No matter how much I tried, I couldn't copy Lee's modified Tai Chi moves. My body just refused and my cultivator's intuition led me to believe that the style wasn't right for my body. Odd. 

So I'd thought, if I couldn't copy that style, why not take inspiration from it and develop a skill I could use. I would have liked to say I was a genius and that it was super easy, barely an inconvenience. It wasn't. Oh Lord help me, It. Was. Not.

It was like trying to teach a pre-historic man how to build a truck from just seeing a van drive. I knew what the skill did but I didn't know how it did it. I had gotten into a really sullen mood that had Peter, aunt May and uncle Ben surprised. 

So I deconstructed Lee's skill from the ground up. No doubt, decades of modified martial arts by experienced masters. My cultivator's essence was only just enough to jump through that hurdle and come up with Echo. 

How did echo work? I still didn't completely know. I half stumbled upon it after all. Basic echo, magnified the force of a blow by an additional 50%. It was like the black flash from Jujutsu Kaisen but only just one part of it. It wasn't fast or seemingly instantaneous like the black flash and I could only use it after delivering a blow or receiving it.

That said, basic Echo was only meant to magnify the force by half but - it had even changed to redirecting the force of a blow back to an opponent by half if it's initial momentum.

This skill became, 'Echo: Reverse.'

Case in point when I'd received Lee's kick, half of the blow had been nullified while the rest had been sent back to him. This move had just changed from being basic to having unimaginable potential! But I had a feeling that the skill itself had an upper limit on what it could redirect and nullify. It just made sense really. Spark energy wasn't potent enough to redirect and nullify the hulk's blow while being immensely weaker than him. 

Echo skill, could become my signature move if I diligently worked on increasing it's effectiveness. All I had was time so why not?

I opened my eyes to find myself alone with the master. 

"Parker. I need to talk to you about something."

I agreed and went towards him.

10 minutes later, I met up with uncle Ben and we drove home. My thoughts were currently occupied by the talk the master and I had.

'Junior division martial arts tournament huh? Could be fun.'